The Lovers Lost
by rakasklaine
Summary: A story of a poetry book, it's writer and how it accidentally brought two lost lovers back together. A story of Kurt and Blaine and how they became the main subject of the said book. A story of regrets, longing and strange coincidences - or is it fate?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:** This story is written half in prose and half in tidbits of poetry. It's been hard to write, the idea slightly too ambitious and maybe strange, but I had to finish it anyway. It's not fluff and simple romance, but it'll have plenty of philosophy and some big dreams.

I hope you'll enjoy, and tell me what you though, whether it was good or bad. :)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own glee or any of it's characters, and I'm not making money out of them. I do own the poems though.

* * *

**Prologue**

_[-]_

_The girl with the pearl earring,_

_not the painting but a real thing,_

_thousand times more beautiful, thousand times more innocent, tragically more real;_

_with strawberry lips: fresh, unkissed lips,_

_and the river - and the world! - under her feet._

_[-]_

"The Lovers Lost" is started mostly by an accident, in a perfectly average bar on a perfectly normal Tuesday evening. It is a smallish but definitely to the nicer end of bars in downtown New York City. 25 years old Johan Lindfors is sitting in the nearly empty bar, his beer forgotten and already turning warm, frost on the glass slowly turning into a puddle around it on the table. He is scribbling furiously on his notepad, his long blonde hair falling down over his shoulders, almost touching the table now that he's crouched over his writing.

Him writing in bars isn't unusual at all, in fact it's almost a daily occurrence. Johan is taking a year long vacation from life back at home to explore the unknown and exciting that is the United States of America. He has been there three months already, but somehow never got past New York. The plan was to travel, to see, to experience, but he seems to have got a bit stuck. He's there to explore and hopefully find a new inspiration for his poetry as home had somehow become too familiar for poems. Poetry is always about the unknown, and never about the things you know by heart and see without looking. It can only be about the familiar if you find unknown in it, and earlier Johan could do just that, but lately it has come more problematic. And maybe it's not really the poetry. Maybe it's just that Johan has gotten bored and boring and his poetry is merely reflecting that.

So, writing in a bar is not unusual. The unusual part is that this time he is not alone in the table, but shares it with an older man, a man with a long beard, big stomach and well worn clothes. The older man is talking and Johan is writing down furiously the whole time.

It happens like this. First Johan is sitting at a secluded table in the bar late Tuesday afternoon, writing down random verses about whatever he sees or hears or happens to think about, when suddenly he notices an older man with evident liking to beer and unhealthy food come to stand by his table. He looks up, not really knowing what he expects to see in the man's eyes, but what he sees is definitely not what he expected. The man looks at him with honest curiosity and warmth and somehow age old knowledge in his eyes and asks him "May I join you?"

Johan nods and points towards the chair across. The man sits down and introduces himself - the name is not really important so I'll leave it out - and then asks what Johan is doing. Johan is prepared to tell his story in a few sentences, and then dismiss the guy. But the man is really interested, asks a lot of questions and seemed to really listen to his answers. Johan ends up spending better half of the next hour just telling about himself and his poetry and how he ended up in New York. The man really knows his poetry and they spend the next hour discussing great old names like Wordsworth and Dante and new contemporary poetry that they both seem to like.

Johan also shows him some of his writings and after a while of concentrated silence as he reads, the man admits that they're good but also lack the painful honesty of getting to the deepest truths about things. What he means is, he writes his poems about things he does not really feel himself or the easier pains of life, ignoring the really hard ones. What he means is that truly great poetry comes from giving up your deepest, darkest, most vulnerable secrets and feelings the poet has. What he means is that poetry isn't really about beautiful words or powerful imagery, but more about the lines in between. Johan thinks this might be the most useful piece of advice he has gotten in a long time.

Then the man starts telling about his own life. He tells about the sweet girl with pearl earrings and strawberry lips that he had met when he was young and believed in world peace and forevers. He told about their thirty days of heaven on earth, when they had sat by the river and held each other's hands during the days and ran in the silent streets of the small town during nights, getting high and believing in magic, until she had had to move to another city and somehow they never found each other again. There is more to the story of this man, of course, but this is not his story, so there's no need to go deeper. This is Johan's story - and really, ultimately, the story of Johan's poetry and what it made happen - so it's better left like this. The important thing of this evening is that Johan hears a painfully real and yet so very wonderful story from a stranger and consequently writes one of his best poems in years.

This encounter is important, because the story he heard and the poem he wrote leads Johan to think about all the other strangers in this big and anonymous city, full of people who are so busy they forget they are breathing, and he thinks what lovers these strangers have lost and what stories they have hidden behind their suits and dresses and faded jeans. He thinks about how everyone has a lover that is lost, a love that is gone in one way or another, were it for death or time or if it just wasn't meant to be. And those are not only sad but also sweet, not only stories of pain but also of love and joy, stories of time, of however long that love lasted and still lasts. He thinks about hearing those other strangers, then, about letting them tell their tales and writing their unheard stories, so that others can read them and feel them and most importantly hear the voice of these people. Because so often stories of love are of present and the future, of what is gained or what we hope for. So often the stories from the past are covered in the loss, or bitterness, never mentioned again. And so easily forgotten, whether on purpose or by accident.

He thinks how he could describe the lost lovers in detail so people reading could see them in their minds and so these lovers and what their love meant would never truly be lost, even if the people themselves are. He thinks about how he could make art out of people's pain, and even though it sounds twisted and sick when put into words like that, Johan really believes this would be a way to make true love stories stay remembered, in words, hopefully strong enough to keep up with the people and the memories they represent. He feels the newness, the almost forgotten inspiration that borders on compulsion, and the possibilities make him impatient to start writing for real again.

And that is how Johan Lindfors comes to start his project "The Lovers Lost", and proceeds to find how a lost love can sometimes be found.

* * *

**The earth in my arms**

_[-]_

_No one tells you when you're a teen rebel_

_and they warn you about sex and STD's_

_that it's not the sex that hurts you_

_but that the absolute worst thing is if you happen to create a life_

_[-]_

One day, not too long after Johan starts his project, he meets a man whose name is Noah but insists on being called Puck, in the same bar he went that first day. The man is just over thirty, and has a slightly overgrown mohawk that clashes almost alarmingly with the basic, but nicely fitted suit and the official looking portfolio he is carrying. As Johan is paying attention to people, hunting his next subject, he quickly notices the man. The way the man is nursing his beer without really seeing it, the portfolio haphazardly laying on the floor beside his feet, his hair still sticking up in true punk fashion, but slightly mussed, as if he's been running his hands through it. Johan notices an earring on his left ear and is instantly hooked by the contradictions.

Johan goes to say hello, asking if he may join the man at the table. The man looks up, startled, eyes friendly but with lingering sadness. Johan wonders if there is a story right there, hidden in the corners of his brown eyes.

"No, it's fine," the man says and Johan sits down. To keep the conversation going, Johan introduces himself.

"Hey, I'm Johan." A friendly, yet somewhat held-back smile is what Johan has found works best. The man looks back up again, this time really focusing on Johan's face, looking at him like he's finally really seeing him there.

"Puck," he offers. Johan takes it, gladly. It's the first step to get what he wants. He feels a little like a devil, sinking his hooks in the innocent, unknowing people, drawing them in and making them fall to his will, taking their souls in their process. He's a manipulator. It seems almost heartless, and yet, his goal and mission is to try to do something good to these people. Because, he's learned already very early in his life that everyone wants their story heard. It's a simple need of human beings, to be heard and understood. And isn't that what Johan is offering?

"Why the suit and the portfolio and the glum face?" Johan asks, nonchalant, a light tone that says you don't have to be honest if you don't want to, but I'm going to be interested if you are. Puck considers him carefully, and Johan knows he is examined, his worth is being evalued. He smiles a small, unassuming smile, hoping he will be found worthy. It's the bait, to get this man interested. He'll reveal the hook soon, but first he needs the bait. It seems to work.

"It was a hard day at work," Puck finally says. Johan wants to know more.

"And what do you do for work?" Puck looks at him a little curiously, but doesn't seem too suspicious.

"I'm a social worker, working with kids in need of new homes. There are good days, and then sometimes.. there are bad," he says, shrugging. The answer honestly surprises Johan, he hadn't pegged this man of contradictions to be a social worker, or nothing in that field really. But after a second thought, it fits in some strange, twisted way. There's something poetic in that, how nothing is as it seems with this man, on his appearance alone. There's unknown in this man.

"I can imagine," Johan hums. "I'm a poet," Johan offers in exchange. It's time to unravel the hook. He would never use anyone's story without letting them know what he's doing, after all. He's not a thief, he's just.. a businessman of sort. A door to door seller.

"Oh," Puck's eyebrows rise high. "I always thought you dudes would all be nerdy and retro-hippie."

"I guess that's another one of those stereotypes that are alarmingly often spot-on." Johan smirks ruefully. Puck seems to appreciate his type of humour.

"Perhaps." Puck chuckles. "What brings you here, though? You don't sound local."

"No, I'm from the northern Europe.. I came here to write my next poetry book, actually." Johan takes in a deep breath. It's time for the offer, time for honesty.

"It's why I'm sitting here right now, actually. I was kind of hoping you could help me with it." Johan smiles at the man, and seeing that the man is surprised and slightly confused but not exactly intimidated. Instead of telling him to leave, like some have done, Puck just laughs.

"I think you've come to the wrong man, dude. I don't think I've ever read a single poem without falling asleep or hitting myself on the head." _Ah_, Johan thinks. Well, Puck certainly didn't look like the poetry type. _Something predictable about him then._

"Well, I don't really need your help with the actual writing. I just hoped you could offer me a story." Johan says.

_[-]_

_the prettiest brown bear he's seen_

_curled and sleeping, so innocent, so dangerous_

_eyes that say I wouldn't ever hurt you_

_eyes that say the world is beautiful and all mine_

_lips that cover sharp teeth, ready to taste blood_

_._

_she's the prettiest grizzly bear_

_specialized in ripping out hearts_

_and his is lost in seconds_

_the only seconds he has before she's taken away_

_[-]_

"Her name was.. is Beth." Puck starts, after hearing the theme of lost loved ones. There are already unshed tears in his eyes. They never fall, not once during the story, but they don't fade either, a constant presence, a threat.

"Who's she?" Johan asks, knowing that he can't assume anything, because people's stories are not really as predictable as you would think. There's something unique in every single one, no matter how ordinary they may seem.

"She's my daughter," Puck answers and Blaine is surprised. "In high school, I had sex with my best friend's girlfriend… and I got her pregnant. She didn't want me to be the father, I was a mistake, the resident bad boy who is hot to have sex with but not the one you have a baby with or settle down with. You know?" A pause, and Johan nods, to show he's listening, if nothing else. "Well, she certainly didn't want me, so she acted first like the baby was her boyfriend's, until it came out and he left her for cheating.. And she decided to give the baby up for adoption."

_[-]_

_I wasn't allowed words,_

_my mouth was stuffed full with tobacco and used condoms_

_silenced with detention slips and court orders_

_taped shut with strips of 'not enough' and 'good-for-nothing'_

_[-]_

"I know I wouldn't have been a good father, I know there would have been no realistic way for me to be her dad or provide her with a stable home and a hopeful future. But I wasn't even asked, I wasn't even allowed to be there to support her on the way. I was just a clueless boy, and I was a mess then, but it hurts to have something created from your flesh and blood taken from you, when you don't even have a say in what happens to that child.I know Quinn.. Beth's mother, had a hard time, I'm not saying she got it easy. It's just… I felt betrayed, and so worthless, and so so sad to lose her without ever having a chance of getting her in the first place."

_[-]_

_They say children are your future, that they are your whole world_

_I was given one minute, feeling the core of my world _

_beating under the smooth surface of bare skin_

_I was given one minute of the earth, before my arms were burned with emptiness_

_[-]_

"I got over it.. And I know she's probably much better off with the woman who got her. Me and Quinn, we were just seventeen, we would have never stood a chance." Puck finally falls silent, after talking for a long time. Johan keeps writing furiously for a while, writing up notes and random lines of poetry that come up in his mind, knowing he wouldn't be able to write the finished version until later, when he's had time to process. When the silence stretches on, and he realises it's over, Johan asks a question that has been tickling him for a while already.

"Is that.. Is Beth the reason why you became a social worker?"

"Yea.. I wanted to give children a better future… Help them if I can, as I couldn't help her." Johan finds the man admirable, and is going to say that, but then another man joins them and Puck greets him like an old friend, giving him a one armed hug and pointing a chair for him. The short, curly-haired man looks at him curiously, his eyes boring into him with startling insight, like he can see right through Johan.

"Blaine, this is Johan, a modern poet dude" he introduces, with the laugh that shows he thinks Johan being a poet is funny, but not as funny as it was before the whole conversation. "And Johan, this is my buddy Blaine." Puck pauses, considers the two men thoughtfully for a second, before he says, carefully "I think, if Blaine would want to, he has a story for you that would really be worth some poetry."


	2. Chapter 2

**The flying free kind**

_[-]  
A boy turned into bird_

_In the depths of night_

_Left without a warning,_

_Rose to race the winds_

_The barest, most deep of instincts, to flee, to defy_

_no time for farewells  
[-]_

Johan is left alone with Blaine soon, after Puck and Johan explained how they met and what Johan is doing. Blaine smiles and Johan looks at him, trying to figure him out. Blaine is a new kind of mystery: his face is open and his body language very visual and yet there is an aura of unknown around him, too. Like mentioned, poetry is all about the unknown to Johan, so Blaine has potential. And based on what Puck first said, though it wasn't much, made it sound like this man truly has a story. Everyone has, of course, but there are stories and then there are _stories_. So, even though he is tired and he usually only does one story per day, Johan stays.

"So, you got the basic idea?" he asks, even though he knows the man did, already. He just wants to get the conversation in the right direction.

"Oh, I think so. You want to write me in your book. "

"If I can write you, yes. I want to let other people see the person you used to see and now remember. Anyone you choose."

"I don't think there's a possibility of choosing," Blaine starts. "It's Kurt, my high school sweetheart, later my fiance. He was as perfect a person as anyone could get. I mean, obviously not perfect, but a deliciously perfect imperfection that was like personally designed for me. He was a free soul in a very well kept angel body. He was springtime, alive and thriving, unstoppable. So gentle when he wanted, so infinitely caring. Also wild, impossible to cage into anything, not for money or diamonds or love, even if he himself might have wanted it. He needed to ride the harshest winds, never go with the safe option, always go out there and make himself seen."

There is a silence then. Blaine's face shows fondness and awe but its all wrapped in sadness and lost. Johan writes. After a while Blaine continues. "That is not why I lost him. We were getting married and I did think he might escape once he realises that the bars are digging too deep into his skin. But he stayed and he told me that I was the only cage he would gladly stay locked in. That I was a home and a wilderness at the same time. And I know he wasn't lying, because underneath all that courage and daring and adventurousness, he had a fragile heart of a bird, that needed a nest to rest in."

"So what happened?" Johan's voice is quiet. This man, Blaine, is different from some. He's different, because unlike Puck just now, unlike so many other, he speaks poetry. Johan's work is already half done, when the man chooses his words.

"One day he was just gone without a trace, clothes and other things gone. It was before our wedding, still weeks away but not so far either. One day I just did not find him anymore. But I knew it wasn't him escaping me. I felt it. If Kurt had escaped me or wanted to be free, he would have told me. He would never have just left. And maybe I was angry at first and believed he was a coward. Maybe I believed he would call or come back. For a long time I had to believe that, I had to be hurt and angry, to survive the day and not drown. But deep down I think I always knew that if Kurt Hummel left me like this, left all his friends too, as far as I know, without a word or a warning, it was for a reason and that reason had nothing to do with me and nothing to do with running away. Eventually I had to face that truth. It did not make anything easier but it made sense.

_[-]_

_Missing you is not in my hands,_

_it's in yours, beloved, held in your delicate claws._

_I don't own this feeling, you do._

_And if today I scream no longer,_

_if I do smile and watch the world move around me,_

_my missing you isn't lessened any._

_[-]_

"Of course I still miss him. Not tragically, I'm not hopeless, I'm not a wreck, but every day there is some tiny, irrelevant thing that makes me think what he would have said, what he would have done if he were there. Even if its just 'Kurt would have ignored this'. And I see his eyes in all the blue colours around and his hair in the browns. I hear his voice in the water that goes down the drains during heavy rain. Its been three years now, since. I checked Facebook once, but I haven't done much more searching, because I know he would be found if he wanted to be. He left because he needed to, and I might not ever know his reason, but it is there, anyway, and it must be real."

Johan does not comment on the stories. He does not express pity or empathy. He asks questions if needed but its not his place or his job to judge or feel their pain. He only needs to understand enough to retell the story they want to tell. So instead of saying something like he's sorry or that it must have been hard, he asks "Tell me more about him. What is the thing about him that makes him a story worth telling?"

_[-]  
every second of him is a story,  
every twinkle of his eyes is brothers grimm  
every movement a swan lake  
every touch of his lips a kama sutra,  
every passing moment is gone with the wind, for me, every single time  
[-]_

Blaine tells Johan a lot about Kurt. He tells how they met in high school, how he had been bullied so bad but he still forgave his bully and even helped him. He tells how he and Kurt both wanted to be free of the restraints that was Ohio. He tells about their dreams of New York and Kurt's dream of Broadway and fashion design, which both eventually came their reality. Blaine tells about the hard year apart, when Kurt was in New York and he was still in Ohio, and how they broke up after some misunderstandings and very bad decisions. He tells about how they got back together in the end, and how they eventually moved to a tiny apartment in New York and studied in good colleges, though neither in their first choice, and about their plans to get married after graduation. Kurt always dreamed big but he worked as hard as he dreamed and it always seemed he would make it eventually.

He also tells Johan about Kurt's facial expressions and his clothes and the way he liked to sleep. All the little things that Blaine loved about him. He tells about the things he hated about Kurt, which strangely still made him love him more. Blaine goes on with his monologue for almost two hours, before he suddenly seems to run out of things to say, or rather, the strength to say them. He looks at his coffee that has turned ice cold long time ago, and there are no tears but he looks very much like he is crying anyway.

Johan is not embarrassed to stare at Blaine, as he's trying to put all he's heard together and figure out what kind of person Blaine is. This was the first gay story so far and also the strongest story in many ways. And it was definitely not because they were gay. Blaine is good with words, very good. His love is also very strong and not at all self pitying or bitter, even though he had all the reason in the world to be all that. The thing is, writing about lost loves is very hard. It so often brings out the feelings about loss and anger and sadness instead of the love that used to be and still is. Blaine gave him the love and not the bitterness, and for that Johan was thankful. It made good poetry. This is also the first time Johan is afraid he can't do Blaine's Kurt justice.

When Johan goes home that day, he doesn't write anything. Then the next day, he fills papers with endless words, hoping that the correct ones will come out.

* * *

**The Fading face**

_[-]_

_would you love a man who never looks you in the eye_

_who walks around like a ghost, hits you by accident_

_stumbles in the brightest of days, is like a child_

_needs a nurse more than a lover?_

_how could I do that to my beloved, _

_my sun and moon, that I've lost in the dark?_

_[-]_

Johan finds his masterpiece several weeks later, in a small and brightly lit café near the upper east side on a sunny Sunday afternoon. During this time he has written a few pieces of really good poetry, many passable verses and shitloads of unusable crap. This is not exactly unusual for a poet, but it can be tiring when entire evenings are spent listening someone whining about a person who clearly was gone for a reason, only to realise there was absolutely nothing there that he could use to write anything publishable. He usually does not tell this to the people themselves.

During the weeks he has gotten better at judging who is story worthy and who is not, even though he still makes serious misjudgements every now and then. This man he sees now, when he enters the cafe, though, was an instant inspiration. The second he lays eyes on the man he knows that this will be a breaking moment in the journey of The lovers lost.

The man is definitely nearing if not in his thirties, but he has an otherworldly complexion that makes him look ageless and so very young at the same time. He has perfectly styled chestnut hair and very pale skin that has not a hint of any kind of tan on it. His lips are curled in a slight, tight lipped smile as his fingers curl around a steaming cup of coffee. He is wearing clothes that look fabulous (and flamboyant), and Johan is not one to know brands of almost any kind and certainly not for clothes, but these look like latest fashion and a loud statement, and like the outfit has cost a lot of both money and careful planning.

The man is also blind.

He has sunglasses on his face and a white-tipped cane is currently resting folded on the table in front of him. Johan steps closer to him but doesn't say anything, not yet, as he feels like he does not want to disturb the simple peace the man is exuding.

Eventually, though, he does have to do something other than look at him. He has to because the barista is starting to look at him suspiciously and also because he would probably hit himself in the face later if he let this change go by. So, he goes to stand next to the blind man, leaving a little distance so as not to startle him, and says "Hello, can I interrupt you for a minute?"

The man turns his face upwards, smile disappearing but not frowning either. "I suppose so. Who are you, if I may ask? Do I know you? Your voice doesn't sound familiar."

"No, in pretty sure you don't know me," Johan replies with a smile, hoping the man would hear it as friendliness. "I'm Johan Lindfors, I'm a poet. I'm writing about people I meet for my next book. I would like to tell you about the project, if you have time, and possibly write about you if you decide to allow me to."

"Wow, that's ... certainly something new," the blind man smiles friendly but a little distant. "I have nothing but time right now, so hit me." His smile widens, and there is no surprise or apprehension in his face, just honest curiosity and perhaps a little confusion. _His face is ridiculously expressive for a blind guy wearing sunglasses_, Johan thinks.

Johan sits down across from the man, and wonders if he should ask the man's name. Usually people introduce themselves to Johan without prompting, so Johan doesn't have to pry. The names are not that important, anyway, so he mostly forgets them, remembering the stories and the poems instead of names. Knowing the name of the person you talk to is just a social norm, not necessary for the project, so Johan think he doesn't need to know. Instead, Johan explains his project and the concept behind The Lovers lost. As he speaks, the man's face changes subtly but noticeably from carefreely curious to purely sad and finally quietly sorrowful and thoughtful. Johan sees this like he sees a lot of things in people and feels it in his bones that this will be sad story, like they all are, but also very real and honestly about love, instead of bitterness or jealousy or disappointment. After a pause and a few questions, the man tells Johan he wants to do it.

"I've got so many I could tell you about and I can't decide." he finally says.

"Choose the one who you thought about first," Johan suggests. Somehow he realises that the man in front of him doesn't even know how he looks like. It feels strange, and slightly uncomfortable, like he has an unfair advantage over the man, like he's using him in a worse way than he usually does with his story tellers. But at the same time, he feels unsettles with the man's empty gaze, like he can see too much of Johan, like he is looking through him and seeing everything even Johan doesn't know. He is also starting to wonder if the man has always been blind and if so, how does it affect the poetry. Unlike you might think, this does not make him anxious, on the contrary, it makes him exited. Visuals are always so big part of poetry that he is intrigued how he would have to rely on other senses to give out the same feeling.

"I haven't always been blind, you know."

_Well, there goes that. _The feeling of the man seeing inside him is intensified as the man seems to know exactly what he's thinking.

"I used to be a normal seeing guy, or well, as normal as an openly gay, fashion forward teen growing in Ohio could be. I was confident, and insecure at the same time, you know how that can be, right? And I was ambitious, I had such big dreams and so much determination to make it big. I wanted to be on broadway, I wanted to sing and shine and be a star. I hated Ohio and I couldn't wait to get out of there, to the city of my dreams. But before I left, I met Blaine, my ex-fiance. He was the guy who rescued me from the bullies and the hate that was starting to get to me. We kind of grew up together, supporting each other, figuring out what to do with our changing bodies and changing hearts and minds."

_[-]_

_His hands on my skin,_

_bare for the first time in my life,_

_covered only in whispers and kisses and unsurety_

_covered only in first love and in shivers that we don't yet understand_

_his trembling hands,_

_his trembling, scared hands on my skin_

_stronger than any tide that could bring me on the shore_

_hit me with the highest waves_

_[-]_

"We got to New York, me a year earlier than him. There was some bad decisions, some regrets and a lot of resentment and pain all around. He cheated on me and I was crushed and never wanted to see him again. But then he followed me here and we found each other again, and somehow the innocent teenage love that we shared had changed into something mature, something much more real. We had lost a lot, the kind of naïve trust that we would be forever, that we would be perfect and have everything we need in each other, and at first it felt like we couldn't get past that. But then we slowly found out how much more stable this new way of loving was, when we had already felt the pain and found out it wasn't perfect and out of fairy tales. Somehow it worked, and I could keep my high school sweetheart, even though it wasn't high school love any longer."

Johan feels strangely like he should know this story already, but he's not sure why. I makes something nag in his head, like he should listen to it but he doesn't hear. Instead, he continues to listen to this man so he doesn't miss anything.

"We were going to get married. I know it was Blaine's dream but it was also mine, and even though I had so many other dreams, I would have never regretted losing some of them for getting this one. But then, for a few years I had been having difficulties with my eyes, just some little things.. harder to read and harder to see clearly in dim lighting.. But then recently before the wedding it became worse. I just thought I would need new glasses or something, so I went to see the doctor. After a lot of research they called to tell me that I had this disease, Stargardt it's called.. It usually already comes out as a child, I was a special case. They basically told me that from then on I would keep losing my eyesight until I become practically blind, and that currently there is no cure for it. Nothing I could do."

_[-]_

_I'm seeing things for the last time_

_maybe not this sight, maybe not right now_

_maybe it will be a while but one of these lasts will really be_

_the last glance _

_of this bedroom that sun kisses every rainless morning_

_of this city that doesn't care but took us in it's embrace anyway_

_of the night sky you have to imagine the stars in_

_of your eyes that hold all the galaxies_

_[-]_

"And so it was, the doctors told me the news and I had to deal with it. There was nothing they could do, really, just hope it would be slower rather than faster. They just told me there were some tests being made for a new cure, but taking part would need a huge amount of money, that I just didn't have. Blaine did not have that kind of money either, and I knew he would give up everything to try to save me but he still would not have enough. I knew he would have destroyed his future, his dreams, his everything for me, and it still may not have worked, and he would have been stuck with a blind boyfriend with no money. I mean, I was studying fashion, with dreams of acting on broadway, how can you do any of that blind?

"I wanted everything for him, I did not want him this. And I was so much in shock myself too, that at that moment I could not think what is wise and what is not wise, I just thought that if he knew about this, he would never let me go, never let this go. I felt so bad for myself, too, felt like I was already dead. The only thing I could think of was 'save him from me. Save him from me.' So I ran. I left the place without a note while he was away, took my things and went away."

[-]

_I left you before I died in your arms,_

_saved you from seeing me turn into ashes,_

_left with the wind before it could blow my remains from your fingers,_

_and it tore my insides in pieces and left a bloody mess on your floor_

_but better that than my life,_

_our love_, your love_._

_Better leave and not let you see me die._

_[-]_

This is where Johan is totally out of the blue hit with a very stunning and breathtaking idea, more precisely, a certain memory, a certain person. He wrote a poem about this a couple of weeks ago, and he remembers it even better than most of the interviewees because this one was one of his first really good ones and still among the best stories in his collection. _Oh god! Could it be? It can't be, right? He couldn't really have found both of the missing pieces of this particular love story? _He wracks his brain to try to remember that guy's name, but he can't find it, it just slips through his grasp, and Johan curses his habit of forgetting names. He doesn't really dare to believe it; it could very easily be just a coincidence, after all. But he can't help feeling it's not.

"I stayed with my friend from my old work first, because she was nice enough to help me and no one else from my old life really knew her. I got money from my health insurance and I live mostly off that, but I still work part time with my old job, just behind the lines, giving advice with fashion marketing and occasionally sewing. "

The blind man's story has been long, he has been talking for an hour straight, but here he stops for a minute and takes a sip of his now ice cold coffee. He grimaces and puts the cup down. Johan realises he did not buy a drink for himself before they started, so he goes and orders a coffee to give Kurt some time alone. When he comes back with two cups of steaming coffee, Kurt thanks him quietly and lifts the cup on his lips.

"This is not the coffee I usually drink," he comments. Something is off with his voice, something is not right. Johan sees his lips quivering subtly, almost unnoticeably. "This is his order. Medium drip." Johan's mind immediately goes back to when he spoke with the first guy with this story in the shady bar, but he can't remember if the other guy drank coffee at all, let alone what his coffee order was.

The man is drinking from his cup with slow, careful sips, his fingers tense but holding the cup reverently. He breathes deep, as if trying to find the smell of his lover inside. "We used to meet over coffee all the time. It was what we did. During high school, we had this coffee place where we went almost every day, even before we were together. I still have an old coffee cup from there, it's the first time he ordered my coffee for me without asking me, because he knew my coffee order. I only told him I had kept it long afterwards. God, I was such a romantic fool."

Johan doesn't say anything. He thinks he should, that he should tell this man whose name he still doesn't know, that he might have found his Blaine. But he doesn't even know if it really is the same person, and even if it was, he has no way to contact Blaine again, no way to tell this man anything but that Blaine still exists and misses him. It's all so fragile and painful, and even if these are stories and poems to him, Johan is not insensitive enough to not realise that this is reality to these people, to this man who just shared his life with Johan. He doesn't know if he would even want to know about Blaine and how he's doing. It's not his decision, not his life. So, instead of saying anything, he just thanks the man and says his goodbyes, and leaves the place, feeling like there's something tight and uncomfortable around his chest. He doesn't know if he did the right decision, or if he had just made the worst mistake of his life.

The poem he writes that evening is one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful he has ever written. He think part of the success is his own pain over his own decision, how he had to decide whether to leave someone alone, no matter how much that might cost, or whether to give them the information that could be too much, that could destroy as much as it could do good… just like what Kurt must be feeling about the decision he made.


	3. Chapter 3

**Not all those who wander are lost**

The next two weeks Johan spends listening to people, writing some more poetry that has a lot of promise but none getting even close to the masterpiece of pain and longing and regret that twists Johan's heart when he even thinks about it, without even knowing if the feeling comes from the story or the art he turned it into or what he himself chose not to do. It's driving him slightly mad, trying to go on with his book, with his art, telling himself to let go and let it be what it is, because it's not as if his so called knowledge is even true, it was only ever just a hunch, and it's also very much not his life. The poem might be his, but that's as far as it goes.

It affects his poetry, both in bad and in good ways. Some days he's distracted, but then, it might also be because those people and their stories couldn't keep his attention, they were too normal, too unimaginative, too wrong for his book. On other days the knowledge of being able to write that poem runs through his veins and the new ones flow, like dreams from his head through his hand, falling on the paper in words that are painfully, beautifully true.

_[-]_

_Finding someone else_

_falling for the solid and present_

_the one that's right here, and touchable_

_when the real thing is but a wisp of a breath in the wind_

_too far away_

_._

_Taking your heart out and analysing it like a scientist_

_saying it's merely an organ_

_it doesn't know anything_

_._

_your body knows, _

_your skin knows, when it's being touched by the solid_

_caressed by the present and there and now_

_your body knows best_

_._

_the wind touching your heart is insignificant_

_heart's merely an organ_

_._

_until the real one returns _

_and sees your body and someone else's hands on it _

_looks at you like you bit through his organs with your teeth_

_and you remember it isn't_

_[-]_

The people Johan watches go by, telling him their stories, crying or smiling, and then leaving again, they leave no marks besides the words on his notebook or the memory of their hands as they shake hello or goodbye. He forgets their names if he ever even heard them in the first place, and he doesn't think about them after. They're like dreams to him, so meaningful when they happen, having so much to tell for him, but forgotten in minutes after waking up and figuring it wasn't real. Slowly, as the weeks go by, Johan finds out he can keep his masterpiece and still go on, leaving it to the depths of his computer, because if he goes back to it, he might be discouraged to write more, intimidated by the perfection he's once managed. It's the pain of an artist, knowing that sometimes your own best work can harm you, that sometimes you have to leave it be to be able to continue with anything else. He forgets the poem, and the story behind it, and the information he chose not to share, and it all becomes just one more dream amongst the others.

Until one day the dream walks straight to him, under the burning clarity of sunlight on a cloudless day, the most real of all real moments, and Johan can't deny the truth of what goes around comes back around any longer. It happens in a beautiful, light coffee place one afternoon, as Johan is interviewing a young woman, barely eighteen, wearing tons of piercings, too much makeup and too many unsaid words in her heart. A girl who has lost more than anyone has any right to. It's almost too much for a poem, like something like this shouldn't even be written.

_[-]_

_The first thing I witnessed in this world_

_was the death of my bearer_

_still mixed in her blood, in too much of it_

_and in the second story that I don't remember_

_my father not being able to look at my face_

_seeing a killer in someone who neck is too weak to even raise her head_

_not seeing she lost her universe too, that day_

_[-]_

And it's just the beginning. There are things in the world like unhappy marriages, and getting a baby to keep it together, and being angry at your other half for not having the body to make one so you need to take someone else's, and there are drunk biological fathers that come to haunt you, and failing marriages that a tiny, demanding human being can't mend no matter how they try, there are adoptive mothers who blame the child for something that could never be the child's fault, but which the child of course learns to blame herself for. It's a story of a downwards spiral, and Johan wants to give the girl something, anything, so that she wouldn't be so alone and so hurt.

And then he sees the blind man whose name he never even found out, standing in the doorway just a few steps from them, head crooked and listening curiously. There's a lull in their conversation, a pause to think and to breathe for the both of them, and the blind man uses the silence to approach them. His white stick hits the tables lightly as he finds his way to them slowly. He stops and takes a breath, and then asks confidently, with a little smile, "Is that Johan, the poet?"

Johan doesn't understand how someone can recognise his voice after so much time, but then again, it could be that the situation sounds familiar, someone telling about the people they've lost (or never had in the first place) and someone listening silently and then quietly asking questions. "Yeah, yes, it's me for sure," he answers, aiming for relaxed so that the girl in front of him doesn't feel threatened. It's a miracle she even started talking to him in the first place, clearly so used to shutting everyone out, that he doesn't want to make her regret it.

"How's the writing going on?" it's a conversation starter, something that says the man wants to have contact, not just be polite and then leave, but it's open so that Johan can choose to dismiss him with a one-word answer if he wants to, or if the situation needs it. But Johan already has all he needs and wants to hear, and he feels like the girl is shaken out of the story now anyway, and probably wouldn't go back to it in any case. The dream is over, they've all woken up to the alarm clock ringing.

"It's fine I think, though I've had some struggles certainly." The man nods, and then turns to the girl sitting in the table, though Johan can't figure out how in the world did he know where she's sitting, when she's been so still and quiet all this time.

"Hey, I'm Kurt, one of Johan's subjects from a few weeks ago. It's nice to meet you." The man - Kurt's face is friendly, smiling, unassuming, like he hasn't heard a word of their conversation. The girl, whose name Johan also doesn't know, he realises, visibly relaxes and smiles too, even if it's fragile and tentative. Maybe the blindness of this man makes him less of a threat, even if she feels too open all of a sudden, like Johan suspects she might.

"Hey", she smiles, "I'm Jenn. Apparently I'm one of Johan's subject too, if that's what you call us." Kurt chuckles, and Johan feels a strange sense of belonging, like this weird group of people who should never have met by any logic or laws of the world, are actually meant to have met today, just like this. Johan is aware that he just heard the both of their names for the first time, but they are still unbearably close to him, because he knows their hearts and he owns them in a way, having their stories and thus being able to turn them into something that is his by definition, like he has the ability and the power to define them. It's almost terrifying, but it also makes these two people so close and so important to him, like they belong with him. And it doesn't matter that he's met dozens of others whose stories he has gotten hold of, because these two are here, in this moment, acting like they belong and as if this is not just Johan borrowing their time.

_[-]_

_It's strange,_

_getting to know people you already know_

_learning names that are tattooed on your skull_

_branding people who already carry your mark_

_as mine_

_mine_

_because they are, always have been_

_[-]_

They three become the strangest group of almost friends you can imagine: a barely adult runaway girl who hides in punkrock and curse words, the blind man who seems so perfectly in control and so very lonely, and the young, promising poet from Northern Europe, who knows words but not always how to be with people. They meet again a few days later, and they return to the coffee shop soon after that, and they drink coffee and chat about life and politics and poetry and music and the people walking outside the window, and they have so different ideas and views of the world, but strangely it doesn't make them feel distant but like their eating three people's worth of days each. And it stays the same for weeks, nothing changing, until one Wednesday afternoon, when the door opens, a breath of chilly wind enters, and the person opening the door notices Johan and smiles.

"Hey, poet! How's the book going?" the curly-haired man says, and Johan notices the familiarity in those friendly hazel brown eyes at the same time as he notices his blind friend freeze completely.

* * *

**You can't handle it **

_[-]_

_Do you know that when the world stops_

_nothing really stops at all_

_it's just that you can't handle it moving_

_[-]_

At first there is silence, the kind of silence that feels total and frozen and screaming all the while the rest of the world continues as normal around them. Johan takes in the way his blind friend is sitting like a statue, with an unreadable horror on his face, and how the stranger who came in is not stranger at all, because while Johan is bad with names he certainly remembers faces and he remembers this one well. His first real success. And it only takes that one moment to realise that he was a fool to convince himself with the idea of coincidences and not being sure and not having the right to intervene. It is surreal, and right at that moment it does not feel the good kind of surreal at all. It feels like none of them are prepared, none of them are ready. Least of all the two guys stuck in the middle of this sudden tornado.

_[-]_

_How do you move a hand when it's not your own?_

_How do you breath with these lungs that I've never had?_

_How do you escape with these stolen legs?_

_How do you tell your mouldy heart it's time to beat fast?_

_[-]_

Johan watches it happen like in a film, where every detail matters. The blind man does not look blind as his eyes are fixed on the source of the voice. His impeccable posture, with the perfect clothing and the faultless hair-do that Johan still doesn't not understand how Kurt manages to maintain, is almost godlike in it's unmoving perfection. Only the small tremors shaking his body break the image. The other man who walked in with a carefree smile and friendly greeting slowly loses the smile as he takes in Kurt, and Johan knows, knows without doubt now that this is Blaine, the fiance Kurt left to save from the misery of his new life or whatever the real reason was. This is Blaine, to whom Johan has already been introduced to once, but whose name he forgot almost immediately because it didn't seem important then. It feels crucial now.

"…Kurt?" The voice is timid, shaky, shocked. Unprepared and scared. Betrayed. A lot hopeful. "Is it really you?"

Kurt flinches and the statue shatters.

_[-]_

_There is nothing more painful_

_than seeing the person you convinced yourself to forget_

_but never could_

_because even though he left you_

_or you left him_

_his hand always stayed in your chest_

_having a chokehold around your heart_

_There is nothing more painful_

_because you had convinced yourself it wouldn't happen again_

_you wouldn't meet again_

_and still never quite managed to let his heart go_

_[-]_

Blaine takes a small step, and then seems to take in the way Kurt's eyes never really focus on him, the white stick beside him, the black sunglasses currently put away on the table. "Kurt, what… what happened to you?"

Johan waits for something big to happen, some violent reaction, something exploding. But what happens is so small and yet so huge that it could have just as well been an atom bomb exploding around them. A feather falling on the floor. Somehow it feels to Johan like something big is starting, something he never planned for, and he feels like a vampire to be thinking this, but he can see how this could turn into the most important poem, the big finale of his gather in Kurt's eyes and a single one falls. His face crumbles as he keeps looking somewhere to the direction of Blaine's questions. "I'm sorry, Blaine.." Kurt whispers. "God, I'm so sorry."

Suddenly Johan notices Jenn, poor Jenn who obviously doesn't know what's going on and is just sitting there, watching thing unfold and explode, having no clue why his friend is dissolving before her eyes. And even though Johan knows exactly who these people are and what this meeting is, he doesn't know anything more than Jenn, not really. He feels sympathy and empathy at the same time, because that's how he so often feels when he writes poems, like he's watching the words appear and mold themselves and he only has the faintest sense of why they are there or what they mean. And even more than normally, he feels there is no script for how this kind of moment plays out, what are the lines, what guidelines would the director give. What words would come out of his fingers, if it was him writing this.

_[-]_

_there are no words for so painful that you want to _

_cut your eyes out_

_to stop seeing (so this won't be real)_

_to stop seeing (because his loved one doesn't, either)_

_to stop seeing (what he doesn't understand)_

_to stop seeing (so something could stop this cutwrenching betrayal_

_and sorrow_

_and desperate lovelovelovelove)_

_[-]_

What Blaine finally does is nothing Johan expects. He waits for Blaine to scream, or run out, or kiss Kurt, or cry, or laugh, or some mixture of all that. But instead, Blaine walks slowly to Kurt, pulls him up in a bone crushing hug, and then hits Kurt in the chest, hard. Kurt seems to just let it all happen, like he has no idea what he's supposed to do so he doesn't do anything. Blaine pulls him back in a hug and Kurt stumbles a little and his arms stay on his sides, until finally he lets his fingers rise to flutter lightly over Blaine's sides. Touching so lightly it's almost not a touch at all.

"I'm so sorry."

_[-]_

_Why?_

_How could you?_

_You promised you would never say goodbye._

_I've never been hurt by anyone like I was by you._

_How could I ever forgive you this?_

_Give me a reason, make me understand._

_What did I do so wrong?_

_What did you do so wrong?_

_I love you._

_[-]_

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"I never stopped."

"Me neither."

"Then why? Why would you do that?"

"Because I thought it would hurt less."

"Than what? Is this the reason you left, because you have this little disadvantage to live with?"

"I lost my whole life. You would have too, and I couldn't do that to you."

"I lost my whole life anyway."

"I'm so sorry, I am. It felt like the only choice then."

"It was the wrong one."

"I know, I know that now."

"I hate you."

"Sometimes I hate myself, too."

"Please don't."

Johan thinks he's living a poem, right inside it in a way he's never really been even when he's writing them. But he's not writing this one. It's writing itself and Johan is just the helpless, puppet-like speaker of it, in the merciless hands of the poet. It's simultaneously the most frightening and the most wonderful feeling of inspiration he's ever had, because it finally, finally makes him one with the art, not only see it or even live it, but to be it, even if it's just the role of the observer.

And all the while the two men are lost in a void of their own emotions that for once Johan can't even try to understand. Blaine caresses Kurt's cheek with gentleness that is in such a stark contrast with the way he had just a minute ago been hitting and spouting anger that really only was the burst of all the quiet desperation and hurt and doubt and helplessness that he has been holding in for all those years, not understanding and not being able to blame and hate his love but not being able to forgive either, because there was always the missing piece of why that Blaine didn't have. But the caress he sees now is achingly tender. And Johan knows there is so much that could still go wrong, that it's only a slight chance that two lovers can get over something this big and keep their love and trust intact. But then he sees Kurt close his useless eyes and Blaine kissing them in what is an apology and understanding and forgiveness, and he thinks, maybe, maybe this is the start of the poem he would call "Lovers found". Something that might not be a masterpiece but certainly immortal. Immortal not because it would be good, not because it could ever match the story behind it, but because of the sheer hugeness of the story itself.

"That wasn't the real reason." he hears Kurt whisper.

"Then what was?"

"I couldn't stand seeing you pity me."

"Like I ever could."

* * *

**The Lovers found**

.

We are wearing this circle of mistakes like a promise ring

a promise of being better

look at the trees

.

how they bend their backs to offer their flowers

like a bouquet of roses for the skies

like a sacrifice: this is how much we love

.

we were lost, once

wandering among them, not understanding their flowery letters

.

We are weaving these strings of lost years into togas

wrapping ourselves in them

knowing they made us this

.

they made us strong as trees

as bendable as junipers, as strong

as much in love, as devoted as an oak

as sad, as broken, as utterly beautiful as weeping willows

as imperfect, as beautiful as they all are

.

we were found, once

bodies like trees, hair full of flowers

full of pain, full of letters

.

We are making these chains of imperfections into jewellery

into silver and gold

into flowery symbols of sacrifice:

this is how much we love

* * *

**A/N:** And that's it. :) Hope you enjoyed! (Even with the slightly open ending ;)


End file.
